Get Me Out Of This Co-Ed Bathroom!!

Jess - NYU

I’m a progressive girl. I’m all about equality.

But give me my own bathroom.

Co-ed bathrooms are one of college’s biggest mysteries. Who thought it would be a good idea? Who decided that it would be totally cool to completely devoid college kids of any type of privacy? Did none of the inventors of co-ed bathrooms ever have a crush?

And if they did, how could they fathom perhaps bumping into that crash while they still had pimple stuff on their face and crow’s nest on top of their head?

I just don’t understand it. The bathroom is sacred. Private. It’s not a place I want to discuss homework or chat about the newest TV show.

I don’t want to step out of the shower and come face to face with the captain of the lacrosse team. I don’t need that sort of horrible awkwardness in my life.

Also, in case no one’s noticed, guys and girls take very different approaches bathroom etiquette. Guys often think nothing of taking the entire sports section into the stall with them and staying in there for hours, while girls prefer to get in and get out without anyone really seeing.

Dealing with a dining hall “situation” (that bean burrito went through you a lot faster than expected) in a public restroom is bad enough, but passing a guy going into a stall at the same time as you? Incredibly, painfully embarrassing.

Has anything good ever happened in a coed bathroom? Has a romance ever blossomed by the hair-clogged showers or toothpaste encrusted sinks? Have the genders ever come together in perfect harmony underneath the harsh florescent lighting? I don’t think so.

After years of strict separation in high school, many freshmen probably look upon co-ed bathrooms as a titillating experience during their first weeks, but as time goes on, they learn the tired lesson that bathrooms aren’t for sharing.